Archaeologists seeking the location of a legendary siege and destructi

Question

Archaeologists seeking the location of a legendary siege and destruction of a city are excavating in several possible places, including a middle and a lower layer of a large mound. The bottom of the middle layer contains some pieces of pottery of type 3, known to be from a later period than the time of the destruction of the city, but the lower layer does not.

Which of the following hypotheses is best supported by the evidence above?

(A) The lower layer contains the remains of the city where the siege took place.

(B) The legend confuses stories from two different historical periods.

(C) The middle layer does not represent the period of the siege.

(D) The siege lasted for a long time before the city was destroyed.

(E) The pottery of type 3 was imported to the city by traders.

Same stem Weaken question: archaeologists-seeking-the-location-of-a-legendary-siege-and-destructi-38845.html

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Official Answer

C

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Mishari · Accepted Answer

(A) The lower layer contains the remains of the city where the siege took place. 
 The argument does NOT provide any information about the lower layer. This statement can not be supported by the evidence. 

(B) The legend confuses stories from two different historical periods. 
 Here is a scope-shift. The fact that the middle layer containts information about a specific age is a FACT and an evidence. It's not affected by what the Archaeologists are looking for. 

 (C) The middle layer does not represent the period of the siege.   Exactly, if the middle layer contains pottery from another period, after the time of the city distruction, then it difnitely does NOT represent the period of the siege. By Logic, the siege comes first, then comes the distruction of the city.  

(D) The siege lasted for a long time before the city was destroyed. 
 While this could be a possibility explaining the evidence in the argument, yet it can not be supported by the argument.  

(E) The pottery of type 3 was imported to the city by traders.
 Irrelevant and out of scope. Imported by traders ? where are we getting this from ? 


 Correct Answer:   C

semwal · Answer

Archaeologists seeking the location of a legendary siege and destruction of a city are excavating in several possible places, including a middle and a lower layer of a large mound. The bottom of the middle layer contains some pieces of pottery of type 3, known to be from a later period than the time of the destruction of the city, but the lower layer does not.

ITS AN INFERENCE QUESTION.... if the middle layer represented period of the seize........the bottom most layer would,nt have had pottery of a later period .....as this part(bottom most) represents the earliest occurrence of its evolution.....HENCE THE MIDDLE LAYER CANNOT REPRESENT PERIOD OF SEIZE......

(A) The lower layer contains the remains of the city where the siege took place.......MAY OR MAY NOT BE TRUE FROM THE STIMULUS.......
(B) The legend confuses stories from two different historical periods. CAN'T INFER THAT ....
(C) The middle layer does not represent the period of the siege. CORRECT..... WE CAN DEFINITELY SAY THAT FROM THE STIMULUS STATEMENTS....
(D) The siege lasted for a long time before the city was destroyed. CAN'T INFER THAT.....ITS HISTORY...INCORRECT....
(E) The pottery of type 3 was imported to the city by traders...NOWHERE MENTIONED.... INCORRECT...

vaibhav1221 · Answer

Archaeologists seeking the location of a legendary siege and destruction of a city are excavating in several possible places, including a middle and a lower layer of a large mound. The bottom of the middle layer contains some pieces of pottery of type 3, known to be from a later period than the time of the destruction of the city, but the lower layer does not.

Which of the following hypotheses is best supported by the evidence above?

(A) The lower layer contains the remains of the city where the siege took place.
  From the prompt we know only about pottery of type 3 which WASN'T found in the lower layer. There is no mention of the legendary siege  
(B) The legend confuses stories from two different historical periods.
  Two historical periods are discussed, the period of the legendary siege and the period when pottery of type 3 was made/used, but there is no confusion.  
(C) The middle layer does not represent the period of the siege.
   Correct. The task was to locate the legendary siege. The prompt suggests that the middle layer contained some pieces of pottery of type 3, and nothing is mentioned about the main motive of the archaeologists' task. We can assume that it did not have anything to do with the legendary siege   
(D) The siege lasted for a long time before the city was destroyed.
  No information in this regard is provided, or can be inferred from the prompt.  
(E) The pottery of type 3 was imported to the city by traders.
  Completely irrelevant.

anvesh004 · Answer

Argument:

Middle Layer --- Old --- No details of anything found
Bottom of Middle Layer --- Older --- Pottery found which is possibly made in later period of destruction
Lower Layer --- Oldest --- No details of anything found

Option C clears states that middle layer does not represent the period of the siege.

KaranB1 · Answer

Please clarify how C is the correct answer

GMATNinja · Answer

KaranB1 ,  Mishari  did a nice run down of the answer choices in  this  post.

This particular question is a bit tricky in that it flips the usual format of GMAT questions -- instead of the passage containing a conclusion/hypothesis that we must analyze in some way, the passage only contains the evidence. Our task is to find a hypothesis in the answer choices that logically follows from the evidence in the passage.

So let's go through the evidence systematically:

Archaeologists are excavating a middle and a lower layer of a large mound to find the site of a legendary city that was besieged/destroyed. 
 The bottom of the middle layer contains some pieces of pottery of type 3, known to be from a later period than the time of the destruction of the city. So, the middle layer was created sometime  after  the destruction of the city. 
 The lower layer does not have any type 3 pottery pieces.

Then, with this evidence in mind, go through each answer choice and add the word " therefore " at the beginning:

As an example, answer choice (A) would be " therefore  the lower layer contains the remains of the city where the siege took place."

This clearly doesn't logically follow the evidence in the passage (all we know is that a certain type of pottery is  not  in the bottom layer). Repeat this process with the other answer choices, and see if that helps you arrive at the correct answer.

I hope this helps!

Deadpool3 · Answer

Hello @ GMATNinja,@ egmat,  nightblade354 ,  gmat1393   Bunuel   Skywalker18   VeritasKarishma

Could you please Clarify the below doubts:
1. Do we have to assume that the siege happened before the destruction of the City.
What if the city was destroyed first and after that it was besieged.

2. In option A
(A) The lower layer contains the remains of the city where the siege took place.

And in Passage as it is mentioned that pottery of type 3, known to be  from a later period than the time of the destruction of the city  -->destruction of city happened before the formation of middle layer--->The lower layer contains the remains of the city  where the siege took place .

And from  where the siege took place , it does not matter whether siege took place before or after the destruction.

KarishmaB · Answer

"siege" means surrounding and attacking a place. So you siege a city and destroy it. It doesn't make sense that you destroy a city and then siege it. There is nothing to siege once you destroy it.

aishu0091 · Answer

P: Archaeologists seeking the location of a legendary siege and destruction of a city 
P: they are excavating in several possible places: 
- a middle of the mound 
- lower layer of a mound. (A mound is a small hill. unfortunately, I didn't know what a mound was a this question was a bit tricky because I couldn't get any picture in my head. But if you know what mound means - should be easy.)

P:The bottom of the middle layer contains some pieces of pottery from a later period than the time of the destruction of the city
P: the lower layer doesn't have this type of pottery

Know that we know that the mound is a small hill. we can assume that the height of the mound was increasing over time and hence the middle layer was built a period after the siege and destruction of the city.

Which of the following hypotheses is best supported by the evidence above?

(A) The lower layer contains the remains of the city where the siege took place: Outside information, cannot verify. the answer is not confirming this. we haven't been given any info about this.

(B) The legend confuses stories from two different historical periods.: which legend? loosely related to stimulus.

(C) The middle layer does not represent the period of the siege: this answer is saying that the middle layer doesn't represent a period of attack. since the pottery was from a different period, then it definitely does NOT represent the period of the siege. By Logic, the siege comes first, then comes the distruction of the city.

(D) The siege lasted for a long time before the city was destroyed.: outside information.

(E) The pottery of type 3 was imported to the city by traders: outside information.

sriramsundaram91 · Answer

Question seems to be wrong, the question asks for hypotheses, instead it should ask for which of the following can be inferred, Option C is more an inference and not a hypothesis. Hypothesis would be A and inference is C. I would choose C only if the question says what can be inferred and not what hypotheses can be formed.

Gemmie · Answer

The best answer to the prompt is (C):  The middle layer does not represent the period of the siege. 
- The key evidence lies in the  pottery types .
- We know pottery type 3 belongs to a later period  after  the city's destruction.
- Finding pottery type 3 in the  bottom of the middle layer  indicates this layer represents a period  later  than the siege.

Therefore, the presence of type 3 pottery in the middle layer  strongly suggests  that this layer is not from the time period of the siege itself.

The other options, while presenting interesting possibilities, are less definitive:

(A) - While the lower layer might be the city, the lack of type 3 pottery doesn't guarantee it. Other factors could explain its absence.

(B) - The time difference in pottery suggests a gap, but it doesn't necessarily confirm the legend confuses periods. The city could have been rebuilt later with type 3 pottery.

(D) - The pottery evidence doesn't tell us anything about the siege duration.

(E) - The pottery's origin (imported or local) doesn't connect to the specific location of the siege.

GMATNinja · Answer

You can certainly form a hypothesis based on supporting evidence, so (C) is fine. After all, despite the evidence, we can't PROVE that (C) is correct. That said, this is a very old question, so I wouldn't lose too much sleep over the semantics here.

RajibDhara · Answer

option A ( the passage mentioned nothing about the lower layer so reject it 
option B ( out of scope )
option C ( exactly what we are looking for we know for sure it will not be from period seige, as mention in the passage )
option D ( we dont know that passage doesn't provide any info on that it could be anything )
option E ( can happen but we dont know it for sure )
correct me if am wrong

VerbalBot · Answer

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Archaeologists seeking the location of a legendary siege and destructi

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